PLAIN PEOPLE: Echo from Prague

Both boys had been born subjects of Austria, but neither liked Habsburg rule. Rather than serve in the Austrian army, John Benes had emigrated to the U.S., where he became a cabinetmaker. His younger brother Eduard stayed behind to help build the new nation of Czechoslovakia.

"Under Austria," John Benes once said, "we had to keep our mouths shut." Returning to the U.S. last week from a visit home, he told a little about the new Czechoslovakia, then shut his mouth. John Benes had left his brother Eduard "ill and under precarious circumstances," he said. "For 19 months I was constantly...

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